Written by: JJ Tan, Founder, Jelly | Last updated: 30 June 2026
Key Takeaways for UK Multi-Site Operators
- Nory software often delivers 10–20% operating-cost reductions and sub-12-month payback for UK restaurant groups with 10 or more sites.
- For 5-site operators, Nory’s annual cost of £3,588 can still create positive net benefit, but payback relies on fast adoption and realistic NLW-adjusted modelling.
- Labour-scheduling savings must be judged against 2026 National Living Wage inflation, where a 10% saving may mean only a 3–4% real reduction.
- At 15 sites, Nory can generate £580,000–£600,000 in combined annual benefit when a 2-percentage-point gross-profit improvement is also achieved.
- For 2–5 site UK groups seeking faster ROI, book a demo with Jelly to compare flat-rate pricing and week-one value delivery.
Nory Pricing Structure for UK Restaurant Groups
Nory does not publish a standard price list, and its commercial terms are negotiated on a per-group basis. Its ROI calculator shows £299 per month for 5 locations, although the full costs including licensing, implementation, training and ongoing support are provided on a quote basis. These costs fall into three broad components.
Licensing fees form the largest share and usually follow a per-site monthly charge that scales with the number of locations. Implementation and onboarding, which covers data migration, staff training and integration configuration, adds a one-off cost that operators frequently report taking eight to sixteen weeks to complete. Ongoing support, including account management and platform updates, completes the annual commitment.
For a 5-site group, the ROI calculator example shows an annual Nory cost of £3,588 (£299 per month). At 15 sites, Nory costs approximately £53,820 annually (£299 per month per location).
Compare Jelly’s pricing to see how a flat £129 per site per month stacks up for your group.
Benchmarking a Strong ROI for Restaurant Technology
In UK multi-site operations, a prime-cost reduction, meaning the combined labour and food-cost percentage of revenue, of 2–5 percentage points over 12 months is a realistic outcome after a technology implementation. For a site generating £500,000 in annual revenue, a 2-point improvement in gross profit margin equates to £10,000 in additional contribution per site per year.
Labour savings from improved scheduling can reach 5–15% of the total labour bill at sites that previously managed rotas manually. Food-cost reductions from automated invoice tracking and waste reduction often sit in the 3–5% range of total food spend. A payback period under 12 months counts as strong for hospitality software. Longer periods become harder to justify to a board or investor because of the sector’s cash-flow sensitivity.
Step-by-Step ROI Calculation for Restaurant Platforms
The standard formula is: ROI (%) = ((Annual Benefit − Annual Cost) ÷ Annual Cost) × 100. For a restaurant technology platform, annual benefit equals the sum of measurable savings, such as reduced food cost, reduced labour cost and admin time recovered, minus any incremental costs introduced by the platform.
The table below illustrates how a 5-site group can achieve sub-12-month payback even at modest scale, assuming each site generates £500,000 in annual revenue and a combined food and labour cost of 65% of revenue. The key takeaway is that net benefit stays strongly positive at both 5 and 15 sites, while the per-site cost burden falls as you scale.
| Metric | Per Site | 5-Site Group | 15-Site Group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual revenue | £500,000 | £2,500,000 | £7,500,000 |
| Food & labour cost (65%) | £325,000 | £1,625,000 | £4,875,000 |
| 10% operating-cost reduction | £32,500 | £162,500 | £487,500 |
| Estimated platform cost (Nory) | — | £3,588 | £53,820 |
| Net annual benefit | — | £158,912 | £433,680 |
At 5 sites, the net benefit is positive and the payback period sits well under 12 months if savings start from month one. In practice, that timing is unlikely because typical onboarding timelines run from 8 to 16 weeks. At 15 sites, the economics improve further, with net benefit approaching £434,000 annually.
The 2026 context adds extra pressure. The UK National Living Wage rose to £12.21 per hour in April 2025, and further upward movement is expected through 2026. For hospitality groups where labour represents 35–40% of revenue, every percentage-point increase in the NLW rate reduces the margin headroom that labour-scheduling software aims to protect.
Scaling from 5 to 15 Sites with Nory
The scaling economics of a platform like Nory are non-linear. Fixed implementation costs spread across more sites at 15 locations, which reduces the per-site burden. Admin time saved also compounds. A platform that saves 10 hours of management time per site per week delivers 50 hours at 5 sites and 150 hours at 15 sites, so the labour-recovery argument becomes far stronger at scale.
The table below quantifies this effect. At 15 sites, net annual benefit is nearly three times that of a 5-site group, even though the platform cost increases by a factor of 15.
| Scale | Estimated Annual Platform Cost | Estimated Annual Benefit (10% reduction) | Net Annual Benefit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 sites (£500k revenue each) | £3,588 | £162,500 | £158,912 |
| 15 sites (£500k revenue each) | £53,820 | £487,500 | £433,680 |
The 15-site group captures roughly three times the net benefit compared with the 5-site group, which highlights the importance of scale for spreading fixed costs. For groups below 5 sites, the per-site cost burden rises in relative terms and the payback period stretches.
National Living Wage Inflation and Real Labour Savings
The UK National Living Wage reached £12.21 per hour in April 2025, a 6.7% increase on the prior year. The UK Hospitality trade body has consistently flagged wage inflation as the main cost pressure facing multi-site operators, with total employment costs rising faster than menu price increases in most casual-dining segments.
Labour-scheduling software that claims a 7–25% reduction in labour cost must be judged against this backdrop. A 10% labour saving on a wage bill that has already risen 6–7% year-on-year delivers a net real saving of roughly 3–4%. That still matters. At a 15-site group with a combined labour cost of £2,000,000, a 3% net saving equals £60,000. Operators should model savings against their post-NLW wage bill, not pre-2025 figures.
15-Site P&L Example: Reaching £580,000–£600,000 Annual Benefit
A 15-site group with £500,000 revenue per site and a 65% prime-cost ratio generates a combined food and labour spend of £4,875,000. A 10% reduction in operating costs yields £487,500 in gross savings. After deducting an estimated £53,820 annual platform cost, the net annual benefit sits at £433,680.
If the platform also delivers a 2-percentage-point gross-profit improvement, consistent with outcomes reported by operators using automated invoice and costing tools, an additional £150,000 in contribution is recoverable. That pushes total net benefit toward £580,000–£600,000 annually. This range assumes full adoption across all sites within the first six months, which requires a structured onboarding programme and active change management.
Model your payback period and run the numbers for your 15-site estate with Jelly’s team.
Jelly: Faster ROI for 2–5 Site UK Groups
The analysis above shows that Nory’s ROI case strengthens significantly at scale, so smaller operators face a different equation. For groups running 2–5 sites, the cost-benefit case for enterprise platforms is tight, and an 8–16 week onboarding timeline can delay payback by a full quarter. Jelly charges a flat £129 per site per month, or £7,740 annually for a 5-site group, with no variable fees per user or feature.
Onboarding takes days rather than months, which matters because every week of delay means a week of unrealised savings. Connecting a supported POS system, including Square, Lightspeed, EPOS Now and Toast, takes about five minutes, and invoice automation begins generating price alerts and spending insights within 24 hours of the first invoice being processed. That speed translates directly to faster payback. Amber restaurant in East London saves £3,000–£4,000 per month using Jelly, representing a 68× return on investment, while Sushi Revolution lifted gross profit by 2–3 percentage points and linked its expansion to a second site in part to the financial visibility Jelly provided.
Jelly automates invoice scanning, live dish costing, price-change alerts and gross-profit reporting. Customers save 10–20 hours of admin per month and see an average 2-percentage-point gross-margin improvement within the first three months. At a single site generating £500,000 in revenue, the 2-point GP improvement discussed earlier (£10,000 annually) far exceeds Jelly’s annual cost of £1,548. That creates a payback period measured in weeks, not months.
For groups already using or evaluating enterprise platforms for their larger estate, Jelly works as a complementary layer for smaller or newer sites where full enterprise deployment is not yet justified.
Conclusion: How to Apply This ROI Framework
Nory software can deliver credible 10–20% operating-cost reductions and sub-12-month payback for UK restaurant groups operating 10 or more sites, where the platform’s cost spreads across enough revenue to create a strong net benefit. For 5-site groups, the payback period tightens and depends heavily on rapid adoption and NLW-adjusted labour savings. For 2–5 site operators, flat-rate platforms with rapid onboarding and week-one value delivery provide a more direct route to measurable ROI.
Operators can now use the tables and examples in this guide as a framework for their own modelling. Start with your current prime-cost baseline, apply a conservative 10% saving assumption, and test the result against 2026 NLW rates and current supplier price indices. Your actual figures will depend on site revenue, current food and labour cost percentages and the speed at which your team adopts new workflows.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Nory cost for a UK restaurant group in 2026?
Nory does not publish standard pricing. Based on its ROI calculator, a 5-site group pays £3,588 annually (£299 per month), with larger groups scaling accordingly. The annual cost for a 5–20 site UK group, including licensing, implementation and ongoing support, must be confirmed via quote because it is not published. Smaller groups at the lower end of that range face a proportionally higher per-site cost burden, which extends the payback period compared with larger operators that can spread fixed implementation costs across more locations. Groups should request a detailed quote that separates licensing, onboarding and support fees to support accurate ROI modelling.
What is a good ROI for a restaurant technology platform?
A payback period under 12 months usually counts as strong for hospitality software. In practice, this means the annual net benefit, meaning measurable savings in food cost, labour cost and admin time minus the platform’s annual cost, should exceed the platform cost within the first year. For UK multi-site operators, improvements in prime cost of 2–5 percentage points provide a realistic benchmark. At a site generating £500,000 in annual revenue, a 2-point improvement is worth £10,000 per year. Operators should model savings conservatively, using current wage bills and supplier price indices rather than pre-inflation baselines.
How do you calculate ROI for a restaurant management platform?
The standard formula is: ROI (%) = ((Annual Benefit − Annual Cost) ÷ Annual Cost) × 100. Annual benefit equals the sum of quantifiable savings, such as reduced food cost, reduced labour cost and admin hours recovered at an hourly rate, minus any incremental costs the platform introduces. Annual cost includes licensing, implementation, training and support. For a 5-site group, calculate total food and labour spend across all sites, apply a conservative saving percentage, subtract the platform’s annual cost and divide the result by the platform cost. Then stress-test the output by modelling a slower adoption curve and assume savings begin in month three rather than month one to reflect onboarding time.
Does National Living Wage inflation affect the ROI case for labour-scheduling software?
Yes, it affects ROI significantly. The National Living Wage increase mentioned earlier, 6.7% in April 2025, continues to push labour costs higher through 2026. Labour-scheduling platforms that claim 7–25% reductions in labour cost must be evaluated against a wage bill that keeps rising. A 10% scheduling saving on a wage bill that has grown 7% delivers a net real saving of about 3%. That still holds value. At a 15-site group with a £2,000,000 combined labour cost, 3% equals £60,000. Operators should model savings against their current, post-NLW wage bill to avoid overstating the ROI case.
What is the fastest way for a 2–5 site UK restaurant group to achieve ROI from back-of-house software?
The fastest route to measurable ROI comes from a platform that begins generating value within the first week of use, needs minimal onboarding time and charges a predictable flat fee that savings can quickly offset. For 2–5 site groups, the priority metrics are food-cost reduction through automated invoice tracking and price-change alerts, gross-profit visibility through live dish costing and admin time recovered. Platforms that integrate directly with existing POS systems, without data migration or extended configuration, shorten the time between sign-up and the first actionable insight. Jelly’s flat £129 per site per month pricing and 24-hour onboarding target this operator profile, with customers reporting average food-cost reductions of 3% and gross-margin improvements of 2 percentage points within the first three months.